This morning, very matter-of-factly, I passed a small kidney stone.
It reminded me that for the last little while I’ve had to pee a lot more often than usual.
Which then reminded me that 2 weeks ago, upon leaving the campground, for approximately 40 minutes I experienced very strong lower back pain, the kind you can’t really ignored, but I laid back on the seat and slept it off. It’s a gift I have, able to will myself to sleep easily. I woke up and the pain was mostly gone and I thought I might have hurt my back while loading up the car with the camping gear.
Which in turns reminded me of November 6, 1997, almost 10 years ago, when I woke up at 1:30 am, sweating and in agony with cramps and pain in my lower back. I got up, not knowing what was really wrong, tears rolling down and went to the washroom, hunched over like a cripple. I took some aspirin and hoped it would make the pain go away. 15 minutes later, I was still in agony, I though maybe a hot shower might help. Hot shower very often equals having to pee, so I let go… but it was blood coming out mixed with urine… Panic in a bathtub in Forrest Hill.
Less than 30 minutes later, I was in the parking lot of Wellesley Hospital walking to the emergency room. I checked in, described my symptoms, which by then weren’t as severe, I thought maybe the aspirin had kicked in, but I was now more stress about the loss of blood than the pain.
They took me to an x-ray machine and then laid me down on a bed next to a bunch of people screaming… the joy of hospitals #07.
I finally saw a doctor at 5:20 am. She said she had a look at the x-ray and couldn’t see anything wrong #07 again. She suggested I go home and call my doctor in the morning. So I left not knowing what was wrong, but there was no more blood in the urine. Later that morning I talked to my doctor and he had me in for a visit right away. He suggested the pain was very similar to kidney stones and that the blood in the urine certainly led him to believe it was the case.
He made an appointment for me to go for an ultra-sound but I had to wait 9 days for it… I was told to drink 8 glasses of water one hour before the test was to start and to not pee until the test was finished. Easier said than done, especially since I had to pee every 10 to 20 minutes… it was constant, and nothing would really come out but drops at times… drops and pain.
The day of the ultra-sound came, I drank my 8 glasses of water and made my way to the clinic. Only 15 minutes had passed since the water and I had to pee like a son-of-a-bitch. I checked-in and told the nurse that I was in serious pain and wasn’t sure how long I could hold. She gave me a glassy look, I knew she had heard that 2 000 000 times before, but this time it was ME, so it was serious… I sat down and tried not to think about it. My name was called finally and I was given paper robes to put on, and then was told to make my way to a particular room. Getting up from the chair made the pain ever worst, but I tried to hold on.
I laid down on the bed as directed and the nastiest looking nurse of the bunch came in and splatted some cold gel on my stomach and without explaining what she was doing she took the tool and started to press on my stomach, I thought I was going to pee all over her… I tried very hard to hold it in, to the point that tears rolled down my face. I told her I really had to go, I couldn’t hold it anymore. She just looked at me, no emotions at all in her face and said: “if you go then we can’t do the test, is that what you want?” I replied: “I really want to do this test but I am not able to hold any liquids at all since these pains have started”. She continued on and tried to do as much as she could until I was basically walking out the door in the direction of the washroom. She just lifted up the wand and said: “fine, we’re done here, we got nothing”. I really wanted to scratch her face off, but I didn’t want to wet the floor, so I ran in my socks and paper robe to the bathroom down the hall and peed, and peed, and peed, and cried. She could’ve at least tried to be understanding. Bitch.
My doctor called me to say the test were inconclusive, but that I could try and do another test at the Wellesley hospital, where they would inject me with die and take many x-rays, that way they might be able to identify the cause of the problem. He told me that I would have to sign a consent form as there was danger of death performing this test, as some people find out the hard way they are allergic to the die. I signed the form and went for the test the following Friday.
Again with the paper robe, again with the water… but this time I was strapped to a bed at my shoulders, feet and with one tight belt just below my bladder holding all liquid in place… The injected the die and a heatwave came over me, but nothing else, I was told this was normal. The 60 minute test started as moved equipment this way and that way and all the while was told not to move. Many x-rays later, they started taking the straps away and when they came to the last one, they said: When we remove this one, you’ll have to run across the room to the bathroom, you will not have a lot of time as your bladder will empty itself wether your are ready or not. They weren’t kidding, I ran and barely made it… and it felt great to finally release again.
It would be a few days before I’d get results, but the doctor was pretty much convinced I was showing classic symptoms of having kidney stones. He explained that when the little fuckers detached themselves from the kidney, we experience severe pain and very often blood in the urine. And then since our body wants to get rid of the stones lodged in our system, we amplify the need to pee constantly as urine will help the stones travel out naturally. Sometimes, if the stones are too big, there is a type of laser surgery called: Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy (ESWL), and it sounded more and more like this is what we would need to prepare for. We made an appointment to meet in 2 days to review the test results together. In the meantime, he was going to put me on the list for this laser treatment… yaouch!
2 days later, I sat in his office. He opened the envelope with the x-rays from the treatment, he had also taken the liberty to ask for the x-rays from that night I spend at the Emergency. He started to look at the most ones, then opened the other envelope and looked at the older ones and said: “Well, it sounds like you’re going to be the proud father of a stone in a day or two, you won’t need the surgery after all. Look here at the first night, you can tell the stone is just outside your kidney, that’s why the pain had strongly diminished by the time you got here. Then look at this one from the other day, the stone has travelled all this distance and is almost ready to pop out. What you’ll need to do is to use a sieve and make sure you catch it when it comes out as we’ll need to analyze it”. “Now you know what your mother when through when she gave birth to you, it’s the closest thing to birth a man will ever experience in his life. So no more worrying, go home and… pee”.
The day after, I was home, and as I was peeing, through a sieve, and the baby popped out… and all of a sudden, every little bit of pain I had experienced for the last month dissapeared. It was instant.
The stone was analyzed and I was told all was normal, not to worry… but to make cranberry juice part of my diet, and drink more water. Which I did for years, but not lately.
And now, while I go to the grocery store to stock up, take a look at my most recent “baby”:
